"Bloody hell, did you own anything in this place?" asked John as I crossed the threshold into my flat for the first time in several months. "It looks like a scene from Tenko."

References to early 1980s Anglo-Australian television co-productions aside, I got the point … if it wasn't nailed down, Mrs TV had taken it with her. In fairness, it was her stuff – and as I was the one who'd wronged her in spectacular fashion, it was hardly likely she was going to leave me anything more than I had actually contributed to our two years of cohabiting.

"Well, the Xbox and Kinect are still there," said John with a consolatory tone as I hauled my rucksack (within which, rather depressingly, almost all of my worldly possessions were stored) into the barren lounge. "Shame there's no telly, though." he added.

Nor indeed a sofa or a bed. I knew we should have rented a furnished flat and put her stuff into storage. Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing.

Luckily the Wi-Fi router was still in place – we got that for free from BT – so, like cybersquatters, John and I sat on the floor and fired up our laptops. Nothing could halt the unstoppable force of the digital media machine. You can take my sofa (well, your sofa), but you'll never take my bandwidth.

"I tell you what, she's left a copy of Barack Obama's autobiography – shall I do an interview with him?" said John, looking over his shoulder at the semi-naked bookshelf as we checked our "Johann Hari – your verdict" stats.

"Forget plagiarism, user generated content is the future," I exclaimed as we pulled up the back end.

Indeed, all we'd done was essentially copy and paste what the Indy journalist had admitted to doing (or not) and then asked the good people of cybershire to dip their digital beaks into the debate. And dip they did. In less than 24 hours the comments section below the story had become an unofficial meeting board for both Hari haters and plagiarism aficionados the world over. The result was more than 30,000 views on the post.

"Why don't we just do this for every even slightly contentious news story," said John, as we scrolled through page after page of user comments.

"Because we'd just be a glorified forum," I answered. "I thought we agreed, we'd never do a Digital Spy." However, looking at just how well our incitements to comment pieces and polls were doing at the moment, it felt more and more sensible to at least download the BuddyPress forums plugin for Wordpress – you know, just in case things ever changed.

After a few hours of winding our users up into a fury by pretending to be Johann Hari, we broke for a microwave burger (the oven was one thing that was still in the kitchen) and a can of pop. As we discussed ways to get from nought to tasty in under 60 seconds (a feat which still eludes all major chilled food manufacturers) a knock came at the door.

"I've brought you a few bits," said Sam as he struggled up the stairs with a sealed box for a 40-inch LED television. "John texted me and said that Mrs TV had cleaned you out, so I asked around and started the ball rolling."

It was touching – Sam had"worked" a contact at a major PR company to get me a "review" set within hours of hearing my plight. Extremely impressive work by anyone's standards.

"I've put in some calls for a Blu-ray, PlayStation 3, Wii, Sky, new phone and all the basics too," he continued. "Not sure what you'll get, but we'll have a try," he said. "You got any beers?"

Content that within days I'd still be without a sofa or bed, but surrounded by free consumer electronics, I popped out for some beers and we drank to my new life as a near-destitute singleton.

"So …" said Sam as John impersonated Salman Rushdie on the comments. "Are you and Melissa, you know …"

"I dunno mate," I conceded. "She said she might pop over and see the flat sometime – is that a good thing?"

"You tell me, mate," said Sam.

As I contemplated my predicament I couldn't help but notice the drunken reflection of Sam and I in the mirror leaning against the wall. Was this how Murdoch started — thirtysomething, pissed and in an empty room? Was this the brave new world we'd envisaged? Unsure of the answers, I crawled off to sleep in the bath.

And when I awoke, I was alone … my internet was blown. The phone line had been cut off.